For those of you waiting for the thrilling conclusion of the key to the Eucalypts of the Hunter Region you’ll just have to wait a little longer as I wade through the stringybarks, but I’ll get there, eventually, probably.
You may have seen some stories on the Hunter Rainforest Revival Project that our Landcare Network is leading in the Maitland area. You may also have even seen the new logo featuring the Regent Bowerbird, also on the logo is the floral mascot for the project, the Blueberry Ash or Hard Quandong (some of its many common names). People who’ve followed our previous “What’s in a Name” series may also be able to translate the botanical name of Elaeocarpus obovatus to Obovate (referring to the leaf) Olive (Elaio) fruit (carpus). That’s a reasonable description of what the fruit looks like so it’s one of those welcome cases where the name makes sense.
The Blueberry Ash is a rainforest tree found from Gosford to north of Townsville, with Ash Island (home of the Kooragang Wetland Rehabilitation Project) being named for the presence of those trees. The tree can reach 45 metres with buttressed roots in sheltered areas getting smaller towards the northern parts of its range.
As with the other Elaeocarpus species it is easily recognised by its blue egg-shaped fruit 6-12mm long. While listed as edible, the skin and flesh around the seed are so thin as to be not worth the effort (yes, I’ve tried, and not much of a taste either). Leaves are glossy green, paler on the underside with irregular leaf margins with small teeth, the underside of the leaves have 1 to 5 domatia. Flowering is in spring with white flowers with 14-25 stamens.
Illustration from: https://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Elaeocarpus~obovatus
The bark is smooth, grey, papery and thin, the timber is white, hard and tough and according to Floyd (Rainforest Plants of Mainland Southeastern Australia) has been used for (among other things) making oars.
Germination can be difficult but there are some hints at Home – Propagate One. Type the species into the search bar.
This will be one of the flagship species we plan to use in revegetation projects in the Lower Hunter Rainforest Revival in the Maitland region over the next five years, pending germination rates!